Rock the Casbah 2007

Epilogue: The Incident of the Sheep and the Maribi's Revenge

2007-08-28T21:15:02Z

Well, I'm am now safely back at home after another 24 hour session of marathon plane flights. It's great to be back with the family and eating good American food. However, I definitely ended my blog a few days too soon. Because in the last 72 hours of our trip, Yemen unleashed the full wrath of it's craziness upon us. It started the morning of our last day of school, and consequently, our last day at the Yemen Language Center. When we walked in for breakfast that morning, we saw a sheep in our outside dining area, tied to a post near the garden. Turns out, one of the YLC students had bought a sheep to be killed for lunch. And no, they didn't have it killed at the market and then prepared and brought to the center. They bought the goat, and kept it tied up overnight so that we could all sit around with it. That morning, a Yemeni kid, who could NOT have been more than 12 years old, showed up to do the honors. This kid came with a set of knives that looked to be half as tall as he was. So, they brought out the sheep held it down, and... botched the first two cuts. The first two knives used were not sharp enough to cut the throat and get at the artery, which significanty upset a number of the Yemeni teachers, since it is supposed to be done in one cut. Finally, the kid pulled out another knife, sharpened it up, and nearly cut all the way through the throat in one motion. Of course, they did this right in the middle of the walkway leading to the kitchen in the center, so anyone who wanted breakfast would have to walk by the profuse amounts of blood coming out of the high pressure arterial spray, which consequently caused them to not want breakfast anymore. Once most of the blood was drained, they tied up one of the back legs, and the kid skinned the sheep in double time. Then, with very obviously practiced blows, he got through the leg cuts, ribs, and spine, and had all the edible meat seperated from the inedible. Luckily, our group was headed for a lunch at a nice restaurant to end our program, and we let the YLC kids have all the sheep for lunch.

At this point, we were all just hoping to get back home without further incident or excitement. We wanted to enjoy our last bit of time in Yemen, but evidently the tribes of the province of Marib (where the car bombing occured) had other ideas. On Thursday night, a few people from the group were smoking sheeshah at a hotel in the Old City. Two of the girls took off early, and were heading back to their hotel, which was on the same street in the Old City. As they rounded a bend in the street, a man bumped into one of the girls and grabbed at her purse. She held on and refused to let go, and then began to scream. The man broke one of the straps, but could not get the purse, and decided to cut his losses and ran off, after nearly 15 seconds of struggle. Somewhat in shock, the girls started to head back to there hotel, but were stopped by some Yemenis. Apparently, other Yemenis had seen what happened, chased the guy down, and proceeded to beat the guy. The local sheikh of that quarter (who somehow managed to get drawn to the scene) asked the girls to identify the guy, which they did. After the girls returned to their hotel, the hotel manager came to them later in the evening, and said that the police needed to talk with them. They went to the station and were asked to identify the would-be mugger again. They took them to a cell where about eight Yemenis were sitting around, chewing qat, acting as they would on any normal Yemeni evening, and the girls identified him once again. Turns out, the mugger was the brother of a very wanted terrorist associated with al Qaeda. Having his brother gives the government quite a bit of leverage over this fugitive. The idea of this type of low level street crime is very surprising in Yemen, where this is almost unheard of. Yemen is incredibly safe for a day-to-day tourist, there is almost no petty theft, or muggings, or crime typically associated with extreme poverty. This unusual incident was explained away by the Yemenis due to the mugger and his brother being from a "bad family and tribe" in Marib.
The day after all this excitement, we had another run-in with members of the trouble making province. Two other members of the group, Heather and Joe, were having lunch when they were approached by a Yemeni man, who sat down at their table and started talking with them. This happens fairly frequently for foreigners who travel outside the tourist areas and speak Arabic. He began to talk with them, telling them he was sheikh from Marib. He went on to talk about how everyone looks down on people from Marib, that they think they are all terrorists and kidnappers, and they all carry bombs in their belts, pointing down to his belt holding his jambia, they traditional Yemeni knife. After lunch, he bought cokes and water for them, and took them to a sweet shop, apparently attempting to continue engaging in a public diplomacy campaign for his province. As he was continuing his monologue in the sweet shop, he apparently emphasized his point about Maribis not being violent by... pulling out a bomb. He pulled at a couple blocks of C-4, which Heather promptly recognized, having formerly served a number of years in the Army. He even pulled it out from the part of his jambia belt that he had pointed to earlier, when despairing over the fact that Yemenis think that all Maribis carry bombs. But, evidently he was just showing off, because nothing actually happened. When he offered to buy Heather a dress and suggested they go get it fitted, Heather and Joe decided they had overstayed their hospitality and made a judicious retreat.

So, having escaped unscathed from all this wackiness during our last 72 hours in Yemen, I've made it back all in one peice to the US. The flights back were totally uneventful, the Yemenia flight from Sana'a to Frankfurt even landed ahead of schedule, which is a minor miracle of God. So, my time in the Middle East has come to an end, for now. It has been a crazy ride, filled with a lot of good memories, and a few things I'll intentionally overlook. If I wind up overseas anytime soon, I'll probably try to use this blog again, but for now, I'm signing off. So long, it's been fun.

Epilogue: The Incident of the Sheep and the Maribi's Revenge remains copyright of the author mc327503, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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End of the line

2007-08-20T13:07:26Z

With five days left here in Sana'a, my crazy Middle Eastern adventures seem to be drawing to a close...for now. Exactly six months and twenty days ago, I walked into John Hopkins airport in Cleveland, bound for a flight to JFK in New York, which would connect to Heathrow in London, and then on to... well, that story has already been told. Now, in five days, I'll be chasing the sun westward once again, heading back to Hopkins. The mid-afternoon call to prayer is starting up off in the distance again, it has become so normal it almost takes effort to realize it's happening at this point. As I sit here, trying to fit this little narrative into something resembling a decent finish, little bits and peices of the last half year keep flashing back. Three seconds of free fall off a cliff in Wadi Beni Khalid... navigating the streets and the smells of the Old City in Sana'a... the waves and the lights on the beach in Qurm... Tuti, Abduallah, Said, and Fatima... the clouds rolling off the mountain in Manakha... stepping off the plane and breathing in the frankincense in Salalah... The list goes on and on, with many of the stories told here, and maybe a few that might not get written down. I could probably spend hours just recalling all the people that I've met, the friends from both programs, my second family in Muscat, everyone in all the countries that have facilitated helping me navigate two radically different, but now familiar, cultures. It's been a physically, mentally, and psychologically grinding time, and it certainly feels like it's been a lot longer than seven months. Even for the month in between the two programs, it was simply a matter of decompressing from one trip and gearing up for a second, and trying to graduate in between. So, on one hand, it's definitely nice to know that I don't have any traveling planned for the near future.

On the other hand, I am not looking forward to coming down off of what I've come to think of as the study abroad addiction. Scientists have theorized that anything that elevates the body's stress levels for a long enough period of time, and the corresponding spike in adrenaline, endorphins, and neurotransmitters that go with it, can lead to a physical addiction in the body. Chemical dependency is simply a synthetic way of over-riding the usual bio-mechanical failsafe features. Over the course of these months, based on my previous experience in China and many discussions with fellow study abroad types, both at home and abroad, it definitely seems feasible that someone can get hooked on studying abroad. While overseas, from the moment I wake up, almost everything is stressful ; traveling, eating, trying to think in another language, even going to the bathroom (actually its definitely stressful going to the bathroom here). As soon as you roll out of bed, the body goes into overdrive, far above the normal rate back in the States, to compensate for everything; the new bacteria in the food and the unusual levels of pollution, dodging traffic and dealing with the stress of almost always having to think about what you're saying before you say it. By the time you return to the States, these stressors have almost become the baseline. The corresponding "crash" that comes with going back to a familiar setting, speaking your native tongue, and living in a completely sanitized Western world can almost be painful. Everything slows down exponentially. After returning, you forget all the bad things, and only remember the exciting, pulse-pouding, adrenaline-pumping parts of being overseas, and start plotting crazy schemes about how to get back overseas. Wilfred Thesiger, one of the last great British explorers, had an interesting view of this dilemma in his classic 'Arabian Sands.' As he attempts to cross the Wahiba Sands, one of the most unforgiving parts of the entire world, his group begins to run out of water. Camels soon begin to drop dead, and they can only travel for a few hours each night. As he lay on the scorching sand underneath the broiling Arabian sun, nearly delirious and on the verge of death, all he can think about is how, if he was in London, he would be going mad trying to get to Arabia. He's on the verge of death, and he STILL knows that he would rather travel through Wahiba than be stuck back in the 'civilized' world. That, to me, sounds like a pretty powerful addiction. In my opinion, it is this physical reaction to coming back to America that creates a lot of 'reverse culture shock,' and it's never fun. Consequently, while I can't wait to see Lindy and Carly and everyone else back home, I can already feel the tension building, deep down inside, like a smoker who knows he's going to have to quit soon. Hopefully, going cold turkey (to keep up the metaphor) will cure me of this for a while, that and maybe re-reading some of these blog posts where I irrationally vent my frustration at some part of overseas life.

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Lunch in Mughsail... the suq in Mutrah... surviving Nizwa... the hours spent in shops in the Old City... Stephanie's conversation with the cab driver in Doha... sitting on the roof of the Sana'a Nights hotel watching the twinkling of lights shining from the colored glass windows of all the old homes... salta, chipati, biryani, shark, and all the other food I've eaten... the memories keep coming. Time plays funny tricks over here, it seems more fluid, less definite. It feels like the two programs have blended into one another, I can't tell where Muscat stops anymore, and Sana'a begins. There are times here in Sana'a when I catch myself thinking that Sana'a is just another side trip from Muscat, and that I'll be heading back to Zainab's house soon. I swear I've known the people from both these trips my entire life, since we've spent so much time together; traveling in crowded buses, studying, eating, suffering through threats and challenges together. We've spent innumerable hours telling all our life stories, and when we've run out, re-telling the old ones and laughing in all the same places. Seven months... it's hard to imagine all the things you can do in seven simple months.

End of the line remains copyright of the author mc327503, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Jaded in Sana'a

2007-08-20T11:45:33Z

It's interesting to reflect back and think about how my perceptions have changed over the course of this program. While this has certainly been the opportunity of a lifetime, despite my complaining, I think it has also definitely made me a little bit more jaded. This realization came to me in light of another round of fresh terrorism warnings. Upon our return from Ta'izz, we found out that there was another round of attacks in the Marib governate. Fortunately, these were against government buildings, checkpoints, and the electrical generating station in Marib. I think the idea that I would find these attacks "fortunate," because they didn't involve Westerners, should have been an early indication of my jaded-ness. Of course, since the electrical generating station linked Sana'a with the hydroelectric power of the Marib dam, rolling blackouts became much more frequent. This was certainly a bad sign, if the area around the tourist centers and the Parliament (aka our center) were losing power and not just the usual poor outskirts of town. Usually they keep the power flowing here as much as possible.

None of this really would have been a problem, since aside from the travel and power issues, what happens in Marib might as well occur in Mongolia for all that it affects us on a day-to-day basis. But, then we got another visit from the embassy folks. The last time we had a visit from the embassy, we were told that Yemen had no history of car bombs... which was eight days before the Marib car bomb attack on the Spanish tourists. This time, we were told that there was no threat of attack on soft targets (aka civilians and tourists rather than "hard" targets like military and government). The Marib attacks were explained away as an anomaly, and besides, it could never happen in Sana'a. So, of course, what happens? Three days later, the US embassy goes on severe lockdown, and sends out a warden message saying that somebody had "specific" intelligence that there might be an attack on soft targets in Sana'a. Of course, I found out about all this today when I finally managed to get on the Internet again and read my email, at Coffee Trader, the Sana'ani version of Starbucks run by an American expat couple. And of course, since it was run by Americans and often attracts an expat crowd, what was one of the places rumored to be on the target list? You got it, the very building I was sitting in. And what was my response to this email? Well, since the warden message was already a week old by the time I read it, I smiled and went on reading my email, I wasn't about to give up a perfectly fine Internet connection because of the threat of a car bomb. That's when it hit me that maybe Yemen has changed my outlook on what constitutes "safe." In America, we obsess over details of security, ranging from our homes up to the national threat index (still at yellow and holding). But, in the past two and a half months, the following things have become normal, and/or just background to the everyday noise of life:
- Fighter-bomber jets flying low over the city (Su-22's from the look of it)
- Sustained gunfire (the summer months, espcially August, are popular for weddings), even when its nearby and about sounds like it's going overhead
- News and rumors of terrorist attacks
- Prolonged power outages due to said terrorist attacks (and simple decay of the Yemeni infrastructure)
- The sight of AK-47's on the shoulder of most adult males
- Being "protected" by an escort when traveling, including a truck mounted heavy machine gun

When all of this becomes a simple, matter of fact part of life, I think that I am definitely going to come back to America with a significantly changed outlook on what constitutes "normal."

Jaded in Sana'a remains copyright of the author mc327503, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Class

2007-08-11T13:49:44Z

I've been a bit negligent on posting recently, largely because class has been kicking into high gear recently, and we've all been grinding out the classwork. So, I figured I might as well put up at least one post on classes since it is the reason for me being here and is consuming a good sized majority of my time. When the State Department said that the program was going to be intensive Arabic, they sure weren't joking. We are using the Al-Kitaab series books, which are one of the most popular Arabic language series in America, and used in most major Arabic programs in American universities. Over the course of this summer, we will be going through an entire book, in the course of eight week. To put this in perspective, each book in the series is meant to be completed in one year. This is in comparison to OU's quarter system, of three quarters of roughly ten weeks each. So, I will be covering the same quantity of material that I would have over the course of 30 weeks at OU in eight weeks here, plus supplementary materials, including a seperate book on political vocabulary, and speaking out on the streets. Consequently, I've become quite a bit more familiar with the Arabic language.

The classes consist of four hours of instruction divided into one hour blocks. The first two periods are focused on speaking proficiency and listening comprehension. The second two periods focus on grammar. I really enjoy this arrangement. All my previous Arabic classes have focused on speaking, but I am still in serious need of building up my vocabulary. We also can focus on everyday stuff that helps us get around Yemeni society easier. Because my previous classes have focused on speaking, I've had very little formal grammar practice. So, the second half of the classes are incredibly useful. Many Arabic words are derived from roots consisting of three letters. Hebrew, another Semitic language, also has a similar trisyllabic system. The three letters of the root form a myriad combination of verbs, nouns, adjectives and all sorts of other parts of speech. I've known this from the beginning, but this is the first time I've formally studied all the structures, and Arabic becomes significantly easier when you can derive the root and compare to similar words. My class started with four people back in June, but one of my classmates Paul (who was also my former roommate at the Hilltown) went back to the States after the Marib stuff. So, now we are down to myself and two others in class. When there are only three people in class, you can't get out of asking questions, you can't avoid doing homework, and you have to stay on the ball when it comes to studying. So, even though this won't be for any formal grade, that doesn't mean I'm working any less. Given that there are only three people in class to begin with, and that my classmates keep coming down "sick" or showing up during the second and third hours, it's practically one on one tutoring.

In addition to the Arabic classwork, we have stuff that is required for the CLS program. I attend a weekly two hour discussion with a Yemeni NGO called the Democracy School. There are about eight of us, broken into two groups of four, paired up with about ten Yemenis per group. We have been discussing, in Arabic, American foriegn policy, the Israeli-Palestine conflict, human rights, and assorted other fun topics. Last week, we had a comparative discussion about the structure of the US government versus the Yemeni government. It's hard enough explaining concepts like the Electoral College or federalismin English, it gets significantly harder trying to explain it in rough Arabic. During the recent trip to Ta'izz, we saw a sign in poorly translated English in our hotel rooms discussing the hours for the "purgation of the ladling." Translating the original Arabic, we came to realize that this somehow meant room cleaning. I can only hope that when I'm having these discussions with Yemenis that I'm not somehow butchering Arabic as badly as the "purgation of the ladling." At times, I'm not always optimistic. Anyways, this is the sort of stuff that keeps me busy most days, so please forgive any prolonged absences on the blog.

Class remains copyright of the author mc327503, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Ta'izz and Jiblah

2007-08-11T12:43:25Z

This weekend brought about another trip outside of Sana'a. We headed down south to the town of Jiblah, and the city of Ta'izz, Yemen's second largest city. As we sat on the bus for the five to six hour bus ride, it occured to me that Yemen has two elevations; above the clouds and below the clouds. The drive down to Jiblah (our first stop) had us zooming in and out of valleys. The Jiblah-Ta'izz-Ibb route is pretty good farm country by Yemeni standards, and the mountains were surprisingly green. It looked more like pictures I've seen of Ireland and north Italy then the rest of Yemen. Many of the mountain terrace farms were growing corn, which was interesting, and also explained where all the roasted corn on the streets of Sana'a comes from.

We made our first stop in the small town of Jiblah, which is noteworthy because of the Queen Arwa Mosque. The mosque is home to the shrine of Queen Arwa, and has some very interesting architectural details drawn from many different areas. Oddly enough, we were told that Shias were not allowed to pray at the mosque. This came about because one my classmates is a Shia and another is an Ismaili, which is a similar sect traditionally lumped in with the Shias. Both of them prayed at the mosque, but we were told after that they made an exception on account of our guest status. The oddest part of all this was that Queen Arwa, whose remains lay in the mosque, was a Shia herself. The Middle East can be a funny place.

We reached Ta'izz later that day and began exploring the city. Ta'izz was the former home of the Rashulid dynasty between the 11th and 15th centuries. The city has the feel of an unkempt European principality. The streets are narrow and built at crazy angles running up and down the hills. With its location at the bottom of a ring of mountains, and the unusually green scenery, it could almost be Andorra, nestled in between Spain and France. For dinner, we ascended (via bus) to Jabel Sabr. This mountain ridge climbs 1500 meters above the valley floor, almost straight up. So, needless to say, the drive up was pretty intense. We ate at the Jabel Sabr hotel, which overlooks the valley, and was apparently built by Sheikh Zayed of the United Arab Emirates, who was apparently fond of Ta'izz. The hotel was sufficiently posh for a the former leader of the UAE. The view at night was awesome, not the least because we were at least 2000 feet above the city. Since it was a Thursday night (the weekend is Thurs-Fri, so equivalent to Saturday in the States), you could look down on the city and see all the fireworks going off to celebrate the traditional Thursday night wedding ceremonies. And the people shooting off AK's, of course. The next day we visited Qalhat al-Qahara, an old fortress being steadily restored. It was actually quite a bit beneath the Jabel Sabr Hotel, but back in the day of the Rashulids, its perch on the mountains dominated the city. The casualty rate for the this program continued to mount on this trip also. My roommate Pat managed to step into a drain and sprain his ankle fairly badly. The bars had been pried apart in order to allow trash to be better forced down into the drain. Hopefully, the swelling will continue to go down and Pat can hobble around on crutches from the Saudi-German hospital. With the exception of Pat's injury, it was a great trip. We continued our practice of going to various places in Yemen and climbing to the highest point available, which seems to be a hallmark of all our trips given Yemen's topography. But, we also got to go visit a city with a fairly long history, and see some more of the real Yemen that we cannot usually get on our single-day trips.

Ta'izz and Jiblah remains copyright of the author mc327503, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Fun City

2007-08-01T12:20:01Z

On the list of stupid things I could do in life, it would seem that going to amusement park in one the world's ten poorest countries would rank high up on the list. The phrase "Yemeni amusement park" didn't quite conjur up images of Cedar Point and Geauga Lake, and I jokingly imagined that the park had a sign on the outside that read: "Fun City; __ # of days with out a visitor killed." But, much to my surprise, Medina al-Fawh (literally translated as Fun City), was indeed, well, fun. To start off with, it is in a pretty good part of town. The very large and very ornate national mosque that is being built dominates the skyline around the park, and provides for an interesting backdrop. The Presidential Palace is also nearby. The street outside of Fun City has the Pizza Hut, KFC, and Baskin Robbins. This is the same KFC that caused a gun battle in Sana'a over two competing claims from different prominent families over the franchise rights. Inside the park though, they have Southern Fired Chicken, a very interesting and obviously copyright-law-free clone of KFC. SFC did have some very good burgers, it was nice to have a double cheese burger. However, I suspect that the hamburger meat was really kabob meat cooked in the shape and manner of a hamburger. Still, it was pretty tasty. After dinner, it was time for some rides. As I have previously mentioned, I was significantly dubious about the idea at the onset. The sum total of all the rides was about equivalent to one of the average American traveling weekend carnivals. There was nothing really fancy about any of it. Still, they had the equivalent of the Tilt-a-Whirl, and the Yo-Yo, plus a Ferris Wheel. After a few rides, we got around to what we had really come to Fun City for, bowling. This may have been the most surreal part of the night. The bowling lanes looked exactly like anything out of the States, maybe even a little nicer. The Yemenis who were there obviously spent quite a bit of time there, because many of them bowled quite well. Anyways, after the three games, I came out of Fun City quite relaxed. All in all, Fun City certainly loved up to its name.

Fun City remains copyright of the author mc327503, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Yemen: If the terrorists don't get you the sea anemones will

2007-07-25T10:50:39Z

The kids that went on the Hodeida trip recently returned from their jaunt down to the coast. I stayed in Sana'a because of the small hope of making my own illicit travel plans and escaping Sana'a to go to Wadi Hawdramaut or Aden. By my reckoning, even a 5% chance of going down to the Hawdramaut was more worthwhile than doing the Tihama coast, where everything would have been like my trip to Oman. Unfortunately, the CLS people figured that I was staying in Sana'a for precisely this reason (I am getting waaaaaaay to easy to read) and put me on the no-go list for travel permits. This roadblock not withstanding, I still could have flown to Aden or Sayun, this negating the need for a travel permit, but alas, it was not to be. So, I stayed in Sana'a and slept, studied, and started working on my Fulbright application. And from what I have heard of the Hodeida trip, it sounds like I may have made the right choice regardless of whether I managed to escape. Amongst the casualties on the trip, one person came down with scabies (no, seriously), one person came down with a violent case of food poisoning that required IV's, and nearly required evacuation and morphine, and one person stepped on a sea anemone in the Red Sea. It was one of the nasty types too, that have the barbs pointing in the reverse direction of the penetration, so they can't be pulled out short of invasive surgery. Plus, there were the usual bug bites, and major sun burns that come with going to a Middle Eastern beach in 100 degree weather, which I found out about back in Muscat. So, I'm fairly glad I stayed far away from the Tihama Coast. I spent quite a bit of time hanging out in Bab as-Sabah, talking with Yemenis and dropping a lot of money on gifts. I got invited, along with the other CLS kids staying in Sana'a, to a lunch at a house of Bab as-Sabah, which turned out to be Yemeni equivalent of Thanksgiving. Our host Gemal, who works with the Ministry of the Interior dealing with tribes in Marib and the Hawdramaut, put on a five course meal, including special Ramadan dishes and Bint as Sahan, which is flaky bread dripping with honey. So, between the oppurtunities to practice my Arabic and the work I got done on the break, all in all I've been very pleased with the trip recently. Now, with the mid-summer break over, it's back to the grind.

Yemen: If the terrorists don't get you the sea anemones will remains copyright of the author mc327503, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The terrorists have won

2007-07-15T09:57:00Z

So, once again the terrorists have won. Our trip to Wadi Hawdramaut, the centerpeice trip of the whole program, has been called off. The road to Hawdramaut runs through Marib, and the program is concerned that some of us fragile little flowers "might be scared" to go through Marib after the bombings. Mind you, this isn't to stop in Marib, or go to the Temple of Bilqis where the bombing occured, they're afraid to simply drive through Marib. The trip was still supposed to occur even after the bombing, but with an alternate route through Aden. But then they found two unexploded car bombs in Aden, and that was the final nail in the coffin. Of course, they didn't bother to ask us if we were concerned about driving through Marib, nor did they let us vote on it like they said they would, they just decided that some people were too scared, and called the whole thing off. This is regardless of the waivers we've signed, and the fact that we all knew what we were getting into when we came here during a civil war. Anybody that is scared to go through Marib shouldn't have come to this country in the first place. The worst part is that they aren't even putting a stop to travel to Hawdramaut, just for the CLS program. The YLC kids, who are paying their own way and apparently expendable, can not only go to Hawdramaut, they can even leave the country and go to Ethiopia. So, instead of the Hawdramaut, they're sending us on a trip to Hodeida, on the Tihama Red Sea Coast, for an allegedly relaxing vacation on the beach, and to go snorkeling. This sounds very good in theory and a lot of the other kids have bought it. Unfortunately, what they aren't telling anyone is that the Tihama is about 110 degrees right now, with humidity. So, we won't be able to go to the beach during the day, and the water will be about 80+ degrees when swimming in it, which will not be fun. On top of all this, we're staying in even more depressing hotels than some of the ones we've already visited. And it is malaria season on the Tihama. Given the figures on malaria in Yemen, we're statistically more likely to die from malaria than terrorism.

The terrorists have won remains copyright of the author mc327503, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Manakha: On top of Arabia

2007-07-15T09:43:26Z

With the travel ban lifted, we are back in business on moving about the country. So, this weekend (weekends here are Thursday/Friday), we went to Manakha, three hours east of Sana'a. Manakha is only about 100 kilometers east of Sana'a as the crow flies, but because of the topography, it turns out to be quite a drive. That, and we got stopped at the checkpoint outside of Sana'a for an hour on the way to Manakha, so that they could send us a security escort from Sana'a. Of course, the security escort just turns us into bait. It practically puts a giant neon sign in Arabic above our buses saying "Important American Tourists Inside." The security detail consisted of a truck with five guys with AK-47's and a 30mm machine gun in the flatbed of the truck. Obviously, these guys probably won't do anything to actually stop an attack, but they sure as hell will kill anybody after they've already attacked us, since nobody is going to go after the security escort first. Obviously, with the security escort and the recent events in Marib, the atmosphere turned macabre fairly quickly, with people cracking car bomb jokes every time we stopped moving. But mostly it was all just really dramatic, with the trip being totally uneventful. It was nice to get out of Sana'a and into the countryside, and the countryside was pretty breath taking. The drive to Manakha goes past the highest point in Yemen, which is also the highest point on the Arabian peninsula. Manakha itself is a small, uneventful town built into the side of a cliff. At night, it looks like a beach town, because you see the lights of the city, and then just aboslute black-ness, with the emptiness of the cliffs substituting for the water of the ocean.

Our second day in Manakha, we went on what was describe to us as "a little walk." It turned out to be a three and a half hour epic journey along the rim of a huge valley. I've seen some pretty rugged territory in China, Oman, and throughout the States, but nothing even came close to the severity of the scenery there. It was just ridge after jagged ridge of mountains, for as far as the eye could see, which was pretty far up there. We stopped in numerous semi-abandoned villages along the way, where the houses were built on rocky outcroppings that shot straight into the air. No wonder the Ottomans had such a hard time conquering this place, each little village is built like a castle. Anyways, the drive back to Sana'a after all this was also uneventful, and now we're all gearing up for the big trip, the four day excursion to Wadi Hawdramaut, the Yemen's version of the Wild West in a country that already looks like the Wild West pretty much everywhere.

Manakha: On top of Arabia remains copyright of the author mc327503, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Back in the communications age

2007-07-08T06:37:08Z

Because they're spreading us all over the city, the program is giving us phones, so I am back in the communications age. Unfortunately, it looks like calls on the phone to the US are about $1/minute, so if you want to talk, it's gonna be best to call from the States. My number is 967-713269224. Yemen is +7 hours from the East Coast.

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Sometimes you just need to laugh

2007-07-06T08:34:19Z

In spite of recent events (the car bomb in Marib, the cancellation of all 4th of July activities, the Yemeni gov't preventing us from touring outside of Sana'a), it's still good to take a step back and laugh a little. All the recent stuff reminded me of an Onion article, so I thought I'd post it here:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/middle_east_conflict_intensifies

And just for fun:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30345

Sometimes you just need to laugh remains copyright of the author mc327503, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Sometimes you just need to laugh

2007-07-06T08:23:58Z

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/middle_east_conflict_intensifies

And just for fun:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30345

Sometimes you just need to laugh remains copyright of the author mc327503, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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More fallout

2007-07-04T11:17:47Z

So this little bombing is really getting everybody into a tizzy, and of course we're getting screwed in the mean time. The Yemeni government is refusing to approve travel permits outside of Sana'a, so our trip this weekend to Manakha, the complete opposite direction of Marib, is cancelled. If this keeps up, we might not be able to go to Wadi Hawdramout, which is kinda one of the whole reasons for coming to Yemen in the first place. The governments show of force extended today to the air force booming along ove the skyline today. From what I was able to tell, it was about 8 or 9 jets, althought they might have been circling around. The jets I did see were F-5's and Su-22's, which are used for attacking ground targets, interestingly enough. Anyways, here are some links to the story from CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/07/03/yemen.blast.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/07/02/yemen.blast.ap/index.html#cnnSTCText

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More fallout

2007-07-04T11:06:14Z

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On the 4th of July

2007-07-04T05:17:52Z

This is the first time I'll be missing 4th of July celebrations in America. I'm going to miss it even more considering the relatively few 4th of July celebrations put on by the American expat community have been cancelled in the wake of recent events. This includes even unofficial parties, like the YLC BBQ, which is disappointing. It's almost cliche to say that you appreciate America most when you've been overseas and seen the difference, but it's only cliche because it's so true. I'm in the middle of 6 months over here, between Oman and Yemen, with less than a month in between the two. Spending this much time in the region has really made me miss certain parts of home. Most of the time its easy to forget about it everything back home since we're so busy, but the 4th of July definitely can make a wayward traveler homesick. At times, the idea of being in a country that doesn't have to worry about car bombs, or secret police, or targeted killings almost seems like some mythical paradise. So, with the 4th of July just another day here in al-Yemen, I'm once again reflecting on the meaning(s) of freedom, and at least for one day, wishing I was back home.

On the 4th of July remains copyright of the author mc327503, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Darker days in Yemen

2007-07-03T14:37:06Z

Many of you who might be following Yemen because of my current presence here no doubt have heard about the latest unrest in Yemen. Those of you who haven't, better that you hear it from me rather than the sensationalist Western media. Yesterday, there was a car bomb in Marib, about 100 miles to the west of Yemen. It killed 7 spanish tourists and their Yemeni guides. Of course, this throws a wrench in any number of plans, but it really isn't as bad as the combined phrases of "car bomb," "Yemen," and "seven people dead" might sound. For one thing, all the tourists have pretty much evac'd, which was pretty funny because they all fled to the airport in convoys guarded by the local cops. Of course, since they have no ties to the community like we do, this was big news for them. So, now we have the city to ourselves, which is awesome, since I've never really liked seeing other foreigners outside of "my" program when studying abroad. Plus, the cost of souveniers is going to plummet, since the people in the suqs were already starting to raise prices in anticipation of the onset of the tourist season. In practical terms, this means next to nothing for us, aside from a lot of logistical headaches. Our planned trip to Marib is off, and the trip to Hawdramaut is also, since we'd have to go through Marib. This sucks since the Hawdramaut is the center of the Yemeni honey, frankincense, and silver trade. The amusing/disturbing part of all this is the recent security briefing from the embassy security officer. When asked about the security viability of housing 40 to 80 Americans in one hotel, and the possibility for a car bomb he replied with this gem: "There is no history of car bombs in Yemen, although, I guess there isn't a history of car bombs until there is a history of car bombs." That was eight days ago. So, now they're splitting all of us into groups of 6 to 8 and disburses us around the old city hotels, where car bombs can't operate because of the crazy alley ways. This should be interesting, since we can now be right in the heart of Sana'a and go into the suqs every day. Of course, getting to the YLC will be much more complicated, and it takes me away from all the cafes where a group of us has been regularly ensconsced recently, so much so that the Yemenis are calling us regulars. On the whole, the Yemenis are probably getting the worst of all of it. All the locals I usually talk to are horrified. Not the least of which is because Yemen was undergoing a nascent tourist revival, which is why Europeans were in Marib in the first place, touring one of the lost palaces of Queen Sheba. It's already being blamed on al Qaeda, and if they catch anybody, it'll probably turn out to be foreign Arabs, or extremist from the Zaydi rebellion up north that aren't satisfied with the recent cease fire. So, in the mean time, we'll all disembark to the Old City, the government is putting more guns on the street (which I didn't think was possible) as a show of force, and life goes on. I'm probably safer now, since Yemen had gone two years without a terrorist attack or kidnapping, this was just the Yemeni law of averages coming back to earth. Aside from the deaths, the worst part of all of this is that the embassy cancelled the Fourth of July party, since they didn't want that many Americans together. Just another day in the Middle East, so it goes.

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The perils of going to Yemen

2007-07-01T13:50:34Z

From one of the other guys on the trip: "I've never a group of people outside of a nursing home discuss their bowel movements so oftern."

Welcome to the Third World

Needless to say, we've all been eating a lot of yogurt.

The perils of going to Yemen remains copyright of the author mc327503, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Casablanca

2007-06-29T07:59:56Z

Every developing country that has security problems always has one of THOSE hotels. The hotel where everyone always knows what going on all over the city, with the really odd mix of foreiginers and locals, with everyone on some seemingly shady business. Well, it would appear that the Hilltown Hotel is THAT hotel here in Sana'a. It has a very Casablanca in WWII feel. One day, the lobby will be filled with tribesmen in from the Hawdramaut, meeting to discuss their plans for the next session of parliament, dressed in sports coats over top of their dishdashas, with jambiyas shover in the belt. The next day, the elevator will open on the way down to the lobby and a Yemeni officer in full dress uniform, toting an AK-47 (which apparently do not need to be checked at the hotel desk), will get in. Or two Yemeni businessmen will be chain smoking in the lobby, while chewing qat, discussing the latest in Sana'ani real estate. And of course, the erstwhile hotel managers at the desk will always be smiling, and can hook you up with qat, and probably some substances or services otherwise illegal in this strict Muslim state. Then, not to mention, there is the two floors of Americans, not just us State Department kids, but assorted American scholars researching 10th century Zaydi munscripts and Arabian oud music. All of the Americans are suspect, because they think we are either CIA spies, or all the blond haired, blue eyed girls that are running around without covering are, umm, available, so to speak. The only thing really missing is a couple of crazy journalists trying to get to Sada to interview the leaders of the Zaydi rebellion and find out if they are, in fact, being supported by the Iranians like everyone here thinks. With it's slightly ramshackle appearance, and location right near the parliament, defense ministry compound, and Tahrir Square, the Hilltown is definitely the place to be. All the tourists and governmental delegations might crowd (well not really crowd since this IS Yemen after all), but the Hilltown has the real pulse of Sana'a

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Guns, gat, and gangster wads

2007-06-29T07:27:56Z

Yemen really is beginning to resemble the American Wild West in my mind. Just as the Wild West was not nearly as violent as people think, so too is Yemen. This probably has a good deal to do with the fact that Yemen is the perfect example of how an armed society is a polite society. Guns are everywhere, espcially with the armed forces and police, which seems to make up about 20% of the working population. Most store owners have one also. We went to Dar al Hajar yesterday, which is in Wadi al-Dur, and there is a place over looking the wadi where you can take pictures with Yemeni falcons and shoot off guns. Unfortunately, we arrived during lunchtime, and only the falcon people and beggars were there, which made me sorely disappointed.
The other overwhelming difference between Yemen and the other Gulf countries I've been to is the prevalence of qat. With the Yemeni accent, the qaf in qat becames a 'g' sound, like the way the Egyptians pronounce the jeem. Thus, qat becomes gat in the local dialect. The reason for this local adaptation of modern standard arabic is because it is almost impossible to pronounce the qaf properly with a tennis ball sized wad of gat in your mouth. Gat leaves litter the streets, and some Yemeni men have wads so large that the cheek is stretched to the point that you can practically see through it. Of course, a lifetime of chewing gat has destroyed the dental hygiene of most Yemenis, and it's pretty nasty to see bits of leaves stuck in teeth and dribbling down the beards of the men.
The last part of Yemeni society that I've been having quite a bit of fun with is the currency. The exchange rate is $1 US for 199 Yemeni rials. Consequently, we've gotten very good at dividing by 200 to get an approxiamate price in US dollars. The advantage of the exchange is that when you exchange money, you get a huge stack of rials. I exchanged a couple hundred dollars at the airport, and got back a two inch thick stack of rials. It looked like a Tony Soprano-style gangster wad. Most of that is locked in the safe at the AIYS now. While the likelihood of getting robbed is next to zero, its just physically impossible to carry around a stack of bills that sized. Between the money I've exchanged, plus the stipend we're getting from the program, I've suddenly realized that I actually have more money than I can spend, for the first time in life. It seems like the only way to spend it all will be to take a trip down to Aden, the Dubai of Yemeni society. Even then, the $700 combined between the stipend is a pretty incredible sum of money. I think I could get used to life in Yemen.

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Life in Yemen

2007-06-26T10:46:53Z

Human beings are wonderfully adaptive when faced with changing circumstances. Or at least so it would seem after one full week here al'Yemen. It seems hard to believe that getting up at 6 AM is now what passes for sleeping in, and going to bed at 10 PM is a really late night. Nor does it seem unusual for random people speaking another language invite me into their home to chew qat. The fact that chewing qat seems normal now also reflects how quickly a person can adapt. Of course, the change in sleeping schedules has become an absolute necessary, since the call to prayer here, for some unknown reason, goes off a little before 4 AM, unlike dawn like most civilized Islamic countries. Thus, it becomes impossible to sleep past 4 AM due to the speaker from the mosque next door is pointed pretty much right at my window. Our hotel is listed in the ´top end´section of my Lonely Planet guide, which really makes me wonder what passes as ´budget.´ My roommate and I finally got a fan, so we can close the unscreened windows and stop getting chewed alive by the bugs. That we are living in a hotel shows how much of a presence American students are beginning to have in Yemen. I would normally be staying at the Yemen Language Center, but with the State Department program, the YLC is hosting over 120 American students and scholars. Consequently, the dorms at the YLC, the YLC guest house, and the Bab al'Sabah house which the YLC owns are all full, which is why the YLC has now more or less taken over the Hilltown Hotel(yes, the Yemenis are very creative at naming stuff, there is also a Starbunny´s, which rips off Starbucks and Bugs Bunny symbols). The YLC is more or less taking over the neighborhood, and looking to expand, since it will soon become the College of Yemeni Middle Eastern studies, which will offer full year programs, and content courses. To a certain degree, this is very disappointing. As anyone who has studied in a place off the beaten path knows, it´s always a little bit disappointing running into other people with white skin while studying in an exotic locale. It´s almost as if they´re ruining your unique experience. On top of that, a rivalry has emerged between the regular YLC kids and us Critical Language Scholarship types. The CLS people are here on scholarship, having everything paid for us, taking the best teachers, and pretty much having the YLC bent to our will, even though we represent only 28 of the 120 odd people at the YLC. Furthermore, most of us have had prior MidEast experience and obviously prior Arabic experience, while most of the YLC´ers are just getting their feet wet. Consequently, we can go wherever we want, when we want, and interact with a much larger segment of Yemeni society. In response, the YLC kids have decided to give us the cold shoulder. To those of us with the CLS program, we couldn´t care less, since the YLC kids mostly speak English, which does us no good, and don´t get out into the street much. And mostly we don´t have time to deal with it, since the program is running us ragged.

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Parliament

2007-06-26T09:57:00Z

My five minute walk from the hotel to the Yemen Language Center includes passing by the street where the Yemeni Parliament is located. The last few days, the parliament has been in session, and oh has that been interesting. Every member of parliament comes in from their respective villages to attend sessions of parliament, and they bring their personal armed escorts with them. That means that the area around our school is suddenly filled with a lot of random guys carrying enough AK'47´s to outfit a small army. This includes the heavy machine gun I saw mounted on the back of a pick up truck, Somali technical style. Of course, this makes the area around our school probably the safest place in Sanaa since nobody would be stupid enough to start anything with that much heavy duty weaponry around, and it´s mostly for show. If any fighting started, I´d be pretty amazed if one out four guns actually worked. The other amusing part was that I saw really nice cars for the first time in this country. I had to do a double take as I was walking through a very poor neighborhood on the way to the hotel, and a Mercedes Kompressor drives by. I personally didn´t think there was enough wealth in this entire country for one person to amass enough to pay for and ship a Mercedes here. But, it was amusing in that this whole situation seemed to be the perfect caricature of Yemen, oddly dressed tribesmen armed to the teeth with Kalashnikov´s chewing qat and laying on the horn as the attempt to fit two cars through a lane only designed for one. It definitely made my week.

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On the ground again

2007-06-23T04:29:06Z

Well, Yemen sure isn't Oman. I've been in country for three days now, and it's definitely taking a little bit to get over the shock of coming from a country like Oman, and winding up here in Yemen. The flight over was decent, although we got stuck on the tarmac in DC for two hours with a mechanical problem. On the DC to Frankfurt leg, I was sitting next to an Army captain on his way to Afghanistan, and we compared notes on where we were heading. When an Army captain who has done two tours in Iraq and is heading to a third in Afghanistan tells you to watch out in Yemen, it makes you sit up and take notice. Of course, now that I'm on the ground here in Sana'a, all the hype and worry about Yemen seems really overwrought. We are living at a hotel about a five minute walk from the school. We've been walking all over the neighborhood, and yesterday we went to the Old City for the first time. Throughout all of this, we have yet to have a problem with anyone. But, walking around Sana'a, the differences between here and Muscat are pretty striking. It reminds me more of my time in China then my time in Oman. Yemen is definitely pretty poor. After being in Oman, it seems very odd to see idle people just sitting around on the street, using what little money they have on qat. Also, after the cleanliness, and well-designed city planning of Muscat, which Omanis take a justifiable pride in, Sana'a seems downright anarchic. There are no decent maps of the city, aside from a small one in my Lonely Planet book, and the streets shoot off in every direction, and they often aren't labeled. Consequently, Sana'a is much more disorienting. I had a handle on Muscat within the first four days of being there, due to its easy layout and being able to sit down with a map and memorize all the landmarks. Here in Sana'a, I'm still just trying to get a hold on the area around my neighborhood. As to the local culture and people, that is all pretty much falling into what I expected. While it is a bit surprising to see the level of poverty, that has more to do with the time I spent in Oman rather than any expectation of anything different. Many of the stereotypes of the country that I had read about certainly seem true enough. There are plenty of heavily armed guards running around the city. Our hotel is near the parliament, so we see a lot of AK-47's. And of course, the qat is ever-present. Qat is a plant grown heavily in Yemen, and chemically it is two parts amphetamine and one part narcotic. Chewing qat is a national addicition, and they estimate that up to 30% of the Yemeni GDP revolves around it. Of course, it is wrecking the traditional agriculture base, since it takes up a lot of water and depletes the nutrients in the soil in a country that already has very poor soil and is almost running out of water. Anyways, I'm off to my first day of classes, I'll have more thoughts of Yemen soon.

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Stateside

2007-05-24T16:31:20Z

I realize there has been a really huge gap between posts, so this post is going to serve as the tie between Oman and Yemen. Yes, I will in fact be going to Yemen. I leave June 17th, exactly one month after having returned from Oman. There are going to be 28 people, myself included, on the trip, from universities all over the US, so it should be pretty interesting to meet everyone. Since this blog is supposed to be about my trips overseas, I won't post a lot of stuff about being back in America. My month is going to be pretty busy trying to catch up on stuff from Oman and get ready to go to Yemen. Oh yeah, and I have to graduate from OU at some point. I must say that it's good to be back. After spending a lot of time thinking about what it would be like to be back after my time in Oman, I really haven't felt a lot of reverse culture shock. The weirdest thing to me since returning is the green-ness of all the trees. I left Ohio in January, with all the trees barren, then spent four months looking at dirt, so to suddenly come back to a place where everything is green has been a little bit weird. But other than that, I feel like I've slipped right back into Americana, quite gladly at that. So, know I'm just spending the rest of my time resting up for another big adventure, and eating as much bacon, cheese, pizza, and hamburgers as possible.

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When it rains, it pours

2007-04-28T13:00:33Z

Don't know if that metaphor is particularly applicable over here, but whatev. I've been a bit bombarded with stuff lately, so I'm trying to catch up on the entries. I've got a lot of stuff this week. I'm interviewing a couple CEO's and government types for my research, so it's hard-core prep time, so that I don't look like an idiot when I talk with them. I'm going to the embassy to follow up on a bunch of stuff pretty soon also. In addition to that, I've got all the paperwork for the summer CAORC programs. I have to fill out all the paperwork that accepted people have to fill out, so that if an opening comes up, I'll be ready to go. Of course, trying to figure out how to get a medical check up before May 10th could be a bit interesting. In addition, there's the long term process of getting a real job and generally contributing to society, and preparing for grad school. So, all in all, it's a busy time.

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The home stretch...

2007-04-28T12:55:38Z

It's hard to imagine that I only have 18 more days left in Oman. As we are finishing up over here, everyone in the group has been looking back. Our days in Mutrah seem like a year and a totally different country ago. We're wrapping up our research, and have a number of final activities planned. It has been a little odd to ponder everything that has gone on over here, espcially since it coincides with the end of my undergraduate career, which prompts quite a bit of soul-searching in of itself. Everyone in the world is consistently changing as life experiences shape their outlook on life. This seems to be one of those rare moments when a person is cogniscent of the changes in world-view that are going on in their life. I'm sure that I've changed to some degree, if only in my outlook on this part of the world. For so long, the places of my trip were just names on a map. Now, I've got pictures, words, ideas, and memories associated with Muscat, Doha, Dubai, Sohar, Sur, Salalah, Abu Dhabi, and all the rest.
For example, I don't think I'll ever see Muscat on a map and not think of my homestay family from here on out. From the beginning, they've done everything in their power to make me feel comfortable. Zainab, my homestay mother, a single working mom, graciously let me into her home, despite a host of cultural attitudes and antipathies. Tuti, the oldest homestay sister, has always been there to help out, and give me advice on navigating life in Muscat. She's only been home on the weekends, because of school and other issues, but I've always been glad to talk with her, and I hope she gets her chance to study in the US. Abdullah, the 16 year old brother, has been my closest friend in Muscat. I wouldn't have seen nearly as much of the city, nor accomplished nearly as much work, without his advice on where to go to work, and gladly bringing me along to all the places he normally goes. The same goes for Sa'id, my 12 year old brother. He's also been there to help me get around and his explanations on life in Muscat have always been hilarious. As to Fadya, my 8 year old sister, she was one of the best parts of my homestay. She reminds me so much of Lindy and Carly that I've called her by the wrong times more than a couple of times. I'm incredibly glad that they've let me into their life, and they've already told me numeous times, that if I ever get a chance to work in Muscat in the future, I'll already have a family to lean on. So, while I certainly miss everyone back home, it's still going to be a bit bittersweet on May 16th. I won't just be leaving my homestay, but also the other 12 SIT kids that I've been practically living with also. We've traveled, shared uncomfortable hotel rooms, gotten into and out of all sorts of interesting situations, and generally lived life to the fullest over here. This is the sort of stuff that makes all the work getting here, the distances from home, and all the innumerable hassles since then, that makes it all worth it. Anyways, I've put off doing my ISP with this post for long enough, back to the grind.

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